


the dark river in the dark woods

by heartofstanding



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-28 05:06:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17781113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofstanding/pseuds/heartofstanding
Summary: The Battle of Five Armies is over. Thranduil lies on the battlefield, at the end of all things.





	the dark river in the dark woods

Thranduil's head is spinning. He remembers the small wooden top he had played with as a boy in the Havens of Sirion, how he would flick it and it would spin over the surface of the table until it came to the edge and crashed to the floor. His head is spinning like that top now, an endless twirl, and he thinks that when it stops, his head will be dashed to pieces. Out of the corner of one eye, blurred by clumped lashes, he sees the dark river curving through the dark woods, a dark sky far above it.

Why has he come here?

 _Long will I tarry_ , he thinks, and he tastes something coppery on his tongue, salt on his lips, and he understands, a little, that everyone needs a battlefield. Even if you shut yourself away, shut the doors, lock them, pretend you are safe, you will realise you are dangerous or endangered, unlock the doors, open them and open yourself.

It hurts, he thinks, the grey skies far above him, the white world cold and soft beneath him, melting snow. It hurts to open yourself, to leave the stillness behind and thrust yourself into the wide open world. Why has he come here?

Little wisdom he has known. _Let go of what you cannot keep._ He lived through two of the three kinslayings, shrank from the blades who sought only the possession of one jewel. _You cannot keep anything forever._ He wept on the dusty Dagorlad plain, his father's cold hand in his. _Even your own self._

Little wisdom has he known, and little has it brought him. The world is changing, speeding away from him like a leaf caught in a gale. The moon will be cold tonight, the sun red tomorrow. Everything will be cast in shadow. He doesn't think he understands, but it's never been for him to understand. He has learnt to be afraid and he has learnt to hide, but neither of those things have stood him in good stead.

 _Long will I tarry_ , he thinks, but he doesn't know the rest of it. He would like to be standing, he thinks, he would like to be amongst the dark woods, to be wading within the dark river, ready to dive deep.

His head is spinning.

It hurts, he thinks. It hurts to open yourself, to close yourself. The stitches pull against skin, tie dead skin to dead skin, but they're not perfect. Light spills out between the black threads, light and pain, and he doesn't understand, but perhaps he hasn't understood anything at all.

He thinks he might understand a little of it, something dark and viscous and vicious on the stone stairs. He knows desecration and desolation, but he does not know redemption. None of them do.

They know the light is flickering out, the lamp burning up the last of the oil, and he coughs, tastes fresh copper. He tries to spit it out, chokes on it, feels it run down his chin, make a thin trail down his throat to pool in the hollow between his collarbones.

The sky above him is grey, there is nothing in it. There will be no stars tonight, the clouds will choke them.

It hurts, he thinks, hears the thud of knees against stone, the faint crack of bone. There's burning in the air, flesh and wood, and he wants to choke on it, but his body thinks of nothing but stitching the skin back together. Restless hands pull at his hair, trying to brush it back from his face. All he sees is the pale gold of it illuminated by a weak, cloud-smothered sun. He thinks he looks through glass, lightly coloured.

He coughs, chokes on that copper in his mouth. He watches the flight of leaves, knows the world is broken. _Find the flaw_ , he thinks, _fix it_. Again and again, the world forsakes him or he forsakes the world. It used to mean something to hold his sword in his hand, to pit himself against the dark.

Once, he thinks, there was a door, and he took pride in the fact he kept it shut. _The way is shut_ , he'd think, fleeing barefoot into the darker woods. Not realising there were cracks in the door for the shadows to slip through.

The hands try to wipe the copper from his face, smear it instead.

'Shit, shit, _shit_ ,' says the hands' voice. _Bard._ 'Are you bleeding?'

Everything is bleeding, he thinks. There's blood everywhere, on his hands, pooling from his mouth. The dead bleed still. Somewhere, he thinks, Thorin Oakenshield is bleeding out still, the poor sad thing, growing wiser and kinder as his body grows harder and colder.

And it hurts, his body is broken, dashed to pieces. His body is trying to repair the damage, to bind up wounds with black thread, to fuse a new sheet of skin over the poor weld of old skin. He's hurt too deep, he thinks, hurt and hurt and hurt.

Yet, it's funny, the way he doesn't remember the old wounds. He doesn't feel them the way he feels the cracked bones, the blood flowing from him, making a new dark river for the woods.

Bard is shouting, crying out for someone's help. Someone is crying out for their victory. The Eagles soar in the sky, high enough that they seem small, tameable. The cries echo, but the dead take the echoes, muffle them.

'Lie still,' Bard says, and Thranduil thinks he says it to say something. He doesn't think he can move. His fingers feel numb as they curl into the snow beneath him. He wants to go home, he wants the dark wood and the dark river, not long white shores and silver glass. But they are beyond him now, his blood flowing too quickly to be caught, to be healed. His head drives back onto the stone beneath him, and Bard cries out, tries to hold him steady.

 _Long will I tarry_ , he thinks, but it's too late now, too late to linger. His head is dashed to pieces on the ground, a child's toy broken by careless fingers.

'Stay still,' Bard says, 'Help is coming. It won't be too much longer.'

Bard sounds worried, his eyes avoid Thranduil's, and he curses under his breath, hisses _hurry up_ at someone Thranduil can't see. Time is nothing, Thranduil thinks. Thranduil knows. He reaches up, tugs at Bard's sleeve, curls his fingers around the Man's blood-stained hand as he chokes again on his own blood, on his own tears.

 _Look_ , he says or wants to say, now is the time when we are all forgiven and there are no more questions of what is deserved. We will laugh and laugh, and there will be no more grief. There will be no more betrayal or greed or sadness or loss or death. No one will be far away, beyond reach. _Now_ is the time when we are all happy.

And doesn't it hurt, he thinks.


End file.
